Question for the pedal heads

[E sharp]

Just bought a Micro Fuzz from Max .
Awesome pedal (gonna do a mini review soon) .
The problem I've got , isn't the pedal , but my sound .

I haven't used much effects over the years , save for my G5 for Hysteria alone . I can now nail the sound with this little pedal , but when the drummer and then the band kick in , I'm completely lost in the mix .

I realise that this is purely a frequency issue on my behalf , but was wondering about splitting the signal .

What I'm asking is , is it possible to run it out of the unbalanced output (not the DI) from my amp , then to a channel in the PA , and just push up the volume for this song only ?

Thus having my clean sound out of the amp and speaker , and the fuzz (with a mix , granted of the clean) out of the PA . This would then kick in the sound for this one song (or maybe another like say Deeper Underground) . So sort of splitting the bass sound with - normal , and then fuzz and bass into the PA , isolating the fuzz from my main sound .

Is this a goer ? Or do you think that maybe DI pedal , with the bass back to the amp through the 'thru' , and an unbalanced 'out' into the fuzz , then the PA (being brought up volume wise just when needed) .

This seems simple to me , but does anyone else do something like this ?

Look forward for any advice , cheers Paul .

[Dood]

Hullo!

My immediate thought wth running a fuzz straight in to the PA, is that it will sound harsh and could lack definition due to the PA's Tweeters. I'd be inclined to buy a loop pedal (or similar) that will allow you to plop the pedal in the usual place, and then blend the fuzz in with your normal bass tone. I use an MXR M80 exactly for this reason, it is designed so that you can EQ and mix dry bass with filthy dirt. You *could* try to tame it by running an EQ after the fuzz then in to the PA to round off the top end a bit and maybe boost the lower mids to simulate a speaker cabinet EQ curve. That should make it sound a bit more realistic. Though I would be inclined to go with a loop plan.

It's completely normal to disappear in the mix with a guitar distortion pedal, as it removes all of your bottom end when you switch it in.

[phil.i.stein]

[quote name='E sharp' post='988554' date='Oct 14 2010, 10:36 PM']Just bought a Micro Fuzz from Max .
Awesome pedal (gonna do a mini review soon) .
The problem I've got , isn't the pedal , but my sound .

I haven't used much effects over the years , save for my G5 for Hysteria alone . I can now nail the sound with this little pedal , but when the drummer and then the band kick in , I'm completely lost in the mix .

I realise that this is purely a frequency issue on my behalf , but was wondering about splitting the signal .

What I'm asking is , is it possible to run it out of the unbalanced output (not the DI) from my amp , then to a channel in the PA , and just push up the volume for this song only ?

Thus having my clean sound out of the amp and speaker , and the fuzz (with a mix , granted of the clean) out of the PA . This would then kick in the sound for this one song (or maybe another like say Deeper Underground) . So sort of splitting the bass sound with - normal , and then fuzz and bass into the PA , isolating the fuzz from my main sound .

Is this a goer ? Or do you think that maybe DI pedal , with the bass back to the amp through the 'thru' , and an unbalanced 'out' into the fuzz , then the PA (being brought up volume wise just when needed) .

This seems simple to me , but does anyone else do something like this ?

Look forward for any advice , cheers Paul .[/quote]
not sure i get the full picture here,

the G5 has two ouputs (synth only & mix), can you use these to achieve the same result ?

or a boss LS-2 (cheap option)

[thisnameistaken]

I would rather get the mix right in the backline. All you need is a blender pedal, maybe with an active volume control on the loop return, to get the mix right between your fuzz and clean sound.

A Boss LS-2 would be about the cheapest way of doing it, and it's a pretty useful swiss-army-knife pedal to have anyway, and I'm not just saying that because I have one for sale. Incidentally mine is for sale because Max replaced it with a high-quality two-channel mixer a few weeks back, but I'd been using the LS-2 for a couple of years.

[Silent Fly]

[quote name='E sharp' post='988554' date='Oct 14 2010, 10:36 PM'](...) I can now nail the sound with this little pedal , but when the drummer and then the band kick in , I'm completely lost in the mix . (...)[/quote]
If the problem is the position in the mix I am not sure sending the same signal to the PA will address the problem effectively.

There are a few options that should help:

- Use a [b]blend pedal[/b] to add some of the clean tone to the signal. E.g. with the Boss LS-2 or the [sfx] S&M.
- Use a [b]cross-over[/b] to process only the high frequencies. It is the same principle of the blender but frequency-based. The [sfx] X&M should do the trick.
- [b]EQ[/b] pedal after the Micro-Fuzz.

I would recommend the EQ. Also because the Micro-Fuzz has already a sort of frequency-based processing and I am not sure adding a further layer would be as effective as a post-processing EQ.

[Happy Jack]

I've got a similar situation, Paul.

I love the sound of the sfx Micro-Fuzz but I use it when playing in a 3-piece and I lose too much of my fundamental sound.

I bought the sfx S&M (see Max's suggestion, above) and it does an excellent job of blending in exactly as much fuzz as I want.

Unfortunately, being a 2-loop pedal I feel as if I really should have a different effect in each loop, but that stops the "clean channel" effect.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='988851' date='Oct 15 2010, 09:16 AM']Unfortunately, being a 2-loop pedal I feel as if I really should have a different effect in each loop, but that stops the "clean channel" effect. [/quote]

FWIW in the second side of my mixer I only have a Boss OC-2. So I can either mix a dry signal in or I can mix in a suboctave. It also means I can footswitch between soloed OC-2 suboctave or a mix of suboctave and clean (using the other channel of the mixer with no pedals active), or indeed a suboctave with something gnarly above it, without having to turn any knobs.